Essen und Trinken

Hey everyone!

It's fall here! Due to Germany being a little farther north than Indiana, we're experiencing temperatures in the mid to lower sixties early in the fall, while I saw the Fort had some nice 73 - 76F all this week! But really it's not bad; the cool air wakes you up in the morning, and it also means the subways aren't as hot and muggy as they normally are in the heat (not to mention the people you stand next to smell considerably better when it's a little chilly out).

The photo above is of my school. Out front and behind the trees you can see the restaurant. As far as "Max" there who supposedly teaches English, I've never seen him once in my five weeks at GLS. I'm beginning to think he's a marketing ploy... The next pic, as I'm sure you can guess, is my classroom, although occasionally our classroom changes (and our teachers too). Not necessarily a bad thing, it keeps things interesting. But yeah the classes are relatively small, 12 people maximum per class.

For those of you who don't know, my parents are going to be here in Berlin in about a week! They'll stay in Berlin for the first week, then for the weekend we'll head to Gera and Christian's village, then Mom and Dad are off on their own adventure to Munich and other places in Germany for the following week. I'm getting excited, not only to see them of course, but I've refrained from seeing many of the normal touristy sights here in Berlin because I knew I would get the chance when they come to visit. Should be pretty neat.

The piggies that you see here are wild boars native to Germany. This is on the edge of Berlin next to one of the city's forests "Grunewald". Christian and I decided to make a little picnic there in the woods some days ago. Since the lake that we were trying to find was a lot farther than we originally thought, a really nice woman gave us a ride there. As you might be able to see, it was already getting pretty dark and the pigs are nocturnal. Long story short, after our very short picnic in the woods at the lake, we decided to make our way home before the woods were totally dark since the pigs can be pretty dangerous if they have babies, and the ones we had seen earlier did. We stuck to this road walking back, which is quite long, and it was getting darker and darker. Except for the occasional car, it was quiet and we were nervous cause we could hear things (most likely boars!) moving in the woods on either side of us. If one of the boars comes after you, it's likely you'll get a couple holes in your legs from the tusks. It ended in us running a little toward the end (it was totally dark) to get out of there faster! So that was an experience, lol.

I thought I would do a little food-blog here with some pictures. The food here really is different, and it took me awhile to get used to not seeing the normal brands of everyday items, like meat, condiments, bread, even junk food, haha. You can click on these pictures to see them larger in another window!

The first picture is of our bread. The type of bread we have every couple of days depends on who went to the bakery or grocery last since we all share the food in the apartment. Pre-sliced, square-shaped bread (what we Americans know as the normal shape of bread) is called "Toast Brot". In my experience here, the bread is usually sold in whole loaves at the bakeries and you simply cut it at home, or I've seen the vendors cut the bread into slices with a machine upon the request of the customer. Our roommates prefer "bio essen" or organic food, so they go to the bio store down the road instead of going to the normal grocery store like Christian and I. I'm usually the one getting the "Toast Brot"... being American and all, I prefer my bread to fit easily into the toaster. But darker, denser breads like these (with seeds in them too) seem to be much more common than the lighter, more flexible toast bread that is more common in the US.

The next photo is the floor in our pantry where we keep things to drink. It's very normal here for almost all juices to be stored in these types of boxes. I think it makes sense, because you can stack them more easily on the shelf here than the bottles. Ok, you Americans back home might be thinking... well why would you need to stack up juice? I've learned that German people don't drink a lot of tap water. It's much more common to drink mainly juice, soda, beer, or at least carbonated water (which interestingly enough comes in three concentrations of bitterness: weak, mild, and strong). When I ask for simply tap water, since I don't care much for the carbonated stuff, sometimes it's almost as if people don't believe that's what I really want. I've even heard the tap water here referred to as "toilet water" (not because it's dirty or anything!) but because it's the same water that goes into the toilets and out of the shower. Anyway it appears more common here to store beverages so that every time you go the grocery you don't have to haul home stuff to drink. ((Segway into a tangent here)) Remember, a lot of people in cities don't have cars and have to (as Christian and I do) walk to the grocery and carry home what you bought in your own reusable cloth bags (they usually never give out plastic bags for your groceries). I don't know if any of you have shopped at ADLI in Fort Wayne, it's next to Cebolla's by the mall. Well, it's a German company, and they don't give out any bags for free either. It's the same thing if you want to use a cart; the carts require you to put in a coin to use them, only returning the coin once you've put the cart away with the others. It makes sense, even though it's less convenient to the customer.
Ok, ok, back to the drinks. By the way, they have every kind of juice you can imagine here: cherry juice, pear juice, banana, grapefruit, pineapple, currant, and any combination of those. Usually it's real juice too, so it's cloudy, not like some juice that is basically flavored sugar water. You'll notice a little box of tomato sauce there, those usually come that way as well. Not very many foods are sold in cans (more harmful to the environment and Germany is, for the most part, a very green country). And of course, there's the milk right there in it's box and unrefrigerated. I love that about milk here. The milk, until you open it, doesn't need to be refrigerated and can be stored for a few weeks just as it is. I've seen people buying cases of 12 milk boxes at a time before in the grocery. The milk is pretty good! I mean, it tastes a little different, but so does everything here. It's not evaporated, which is the only way we can really store dairy milk in the US that I know of.

This picture is our tea and honey and similar items stash for the apartment. Germans like tea! Or maybe Europeans in general like tea. We have SO much tea! And you can, of course, see the Nutella there on the shelf toward the bottom. I read Nutella has different density depending on what country you buy it in. The French and American Nutella is way thinner and creamier because most of the bread in those countries is soft, therefore it's easy to spread. In Germany, the bread is thicker and so is the Nutella... a LOT thicker. In fact, one of our roommates nearly broke her toe from dropping the jar of Nutella on her foot! But she's ok, so it's funny... lol

Moving on to the normal contents of our fridge!

These are our condiments. "Senf" is mustard, and we have three different kinds. The ketchup here isn't as sweet, and we make spaghetti using it as spaghetti sauce sometimes. Just throw half a bottle on, add milk and some Italian seasoning! The stuff that looks like tomato tooth paste is tomato concentrate for making sauces. We have some "Joghurt Mayo" which tastes a lot like Miracle Whip. As far as the green squeeze bottle, to be honest I don't really know what that is, but I'm guessing its like mayo with herbs in it for sandwiches. We also have several jars of homemade jam in there too, but I forgot to include those here.

Next is butter, margarine and yogurt. There's a lot of yogurt eaten here that has no specific flavor. I always thought vanilla yogurt was considered "plain" back in the US. But apparently, that's not true, and it's pretty bitter. I've been informed we have this same kind of plain yogurt back home, but I think its mostly used for cooking, not for breakfast! The "Goldsaft" is syrup made from sweet beets. Don't know if I'll ever try that one. Kerrigold Irish Butter is usually what's in our fridge. The margarine is my doing. Well my wimpy toast bread can't handle the thickness of the Irish butter and margarine is easier to spread!

Moving on to meat. This is all pre-cut meat that is usually put on one piece of bread or toast and eaten as an open faced sandwich. Christian likes to have this for dinner too. German people have their main, hot meal at lunch and have light food for dinner. These are often used as a breakfast food too, and I'll talk about breakfast a little later in this post.
"Paprika" in most cases means "pepper", although the seasoning is still called paprika. The little chopped up meat in the right hand corner can be used pretty much like bacon bits. Christian cooks them with homemade fried potatoes and it's pretty tasty. (Family, you should appreciate my usage of the word "tasty" here... Everyone else, don't worry about it.)

And finally, the remaining contents of our fridge consist of cheeses! I should add that since these photos were taken this morning Christian and I went to a fancy grocery where he got considerably more cheese. What can I say about cheese here? First of all, even though I'm no fan of cheeses, it appears to all be pretty great quality, as far as fresh cheese goes. Cheese is important to the Germans that I've met. I can tell you I've seen more cheese here in Germany than I did when I was at the 'Mouse House' in Wisconsin when I was a kid. Just as with meat, it's very common to use the open-faced sandwich thing with cheese. Sometimes Christian will sit happily down with a plate of bread and cheese and be very very excited about what he's about to eat. Ok, we have here in this photo gouda, brie, bleau cheese, Allgaeuer is a brand of processed cheese, kinda like American cheese, mozzarella and others. "Quark" is like a more liquidy mix between cream cheese and sour cream and you also spread it on bread. Gunter loves quark, and he always has a big bowl of it in the fridge so he can have it for breakfast like everyday. Cheese, cheese, cheese. Of course, there are a lot more kinds of cheese in the grocery, everything from really cheap Allgaeuer to really expensive, hard, and crusty old cheese, to cheese that has things like peppers or fruit mixed in, they have it! Cheese lovers, you belong in Germany!

This next photo was taken in the Rhineland at our bed and breakfast. Just shows you the possibilities of breakfast here! Granted, there is a lot of food here, but this isn't really considered to be out of the ordinary as far as food. Meat, cheese, homemade jam, hard boiled egg, rolls, butter, tea, coffee... Sit down breakfast is usually like this but smaller. Sorry for the blurry. The pic below is Christian's breakfast this morning. He says it's not a normal one for him because his plate consists of no cheese! Just so you all know...


Well, that's all for now, folks! I hope you're all enjoying the Fort in the fall and the Johnny Appleseed Festival! Take care!